Jason Blum (photo by Kurt Iswarienko/courtesy of Israel Film Festival)

LOS ANGELES

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The African American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) announced that music icon Quincy Jones and prolific filmmaker Jason Blum are among its 2019 Special Achievement honorees. The awards, celebrating career excellence in and around the cinematic arts, are given out annually by the association which represents the largest body of Black film critics in the world. Along with Jones and Blum, who produced Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman this year, director Aneesh Chaganty, AAFCA Breakthrough Film Award recipient for his film Searching, and early jazz innovator Buddy Bolden, the posthumous recipient of the AAFCA Pioneer Award and subject of Daniel Pritzker long-awaited biopic, Bolden, join the impressive list of previously announced recipients, including Netflix’s Tengo Nagenda and HBO’s Kelly Edwards.

“Quincy Jones is a cultural icon,” AAFCA co-founder Shawn Edwards shared. “For nearly 70 years, he has helped shape pop culture as a music composer and producer as well as a film/TV composer and producer. His creative influence is unparalleled. He has molded the arts, film and music with a force that we may never witness again in our lifetime and given back all along the way.”

AAFCA co-founder and CEO Gil Robertson shared that “Jason Blum is a visionary creatively and in business. Through Blumhouse, he has rebirthed the horror genre, favoring both horror and specialty films like BlacKkKlansman that inclusively reflect or make us think about the world today. I am thrilled that AAFCA is honoring Jason, the legendary Quincy Jones, jazz pioneer Bolden and the other great creatives, in front of and behind the camera, that continue to make our industry and our world great.”

AAFCA Special Achievement Awards will be distributed over two signature ceremonies. Six awards to honorees, including Buddy Bolden and the film Crazy Rich Asians, will be presented on February 2 at the California Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey. Jones and Blum will be honored at the 10th Annual AAFCA Awards, alongside AAFCA Best Picture winner Black Panther and more, on February 6 at the Taglyan Complex in the heart of Hollywood.